Cotton-Eyed Summer
by Zayz
Summary: Nick/Jess. "Where do we come from? Where do we go?" A series of drabbles detailing the post-finale summer of Nick and Jess.
1. Jasmine and Seaweed

A/N: It's going to be a long, long summer, Newbies. So I'm going to spend it writing drabbles/short one-shots, about Nick and Jess and how they work through their crazy. The first one here picks up right after the finale.

The title – Cotton-Eyed Summer – is obviously a nod to the song used in the finale. But I like it because I looked up what "cotton-eyed" meant – and though the term is contested, it most usually means either "drunk" or "having large whites in your eyes and therefore appearing permanently surprised." And both these definitions apply to my sweetheart/angel/love-of-my-life Nick Miller, and to an extent Jess, so I was very pleased.

This drabble – and, really, this whole project – is for my girl Mina (Wilhelmina Willoughby), one of the sweetest people I know. Summer is for smiling; I hope I can make you smile with Ness silliness.

Enjoy, sweets. x

* * *

**Cotton-Eyed Summer  
By: Zayz**

**I. Jasmine and Seaweed**

* * *

"You should take a left here."

"No, Jess. I'm taking a right. And then I'm going to take another right."

"I think that's a highway coming up. Which highway is it?"

"I don't know. We'll find out as we keep driving."

"What exit are we going to take from it?"

"I don't know."

"Is there anything you _do _know, Nick?"

A red light looms ahead. Nick stops obediently before the line, and turns to grin at Jess. His smile is luminous – he seems to glow from the inside out. His joy radiates off of him like heat.

He leans in and kisses her, just because he can.

"I know that right now, I'm happy – and I don't care where we're going, because we get to figure it out together."

They're still kissing when the light turns green and a chorus of car horns behind them jerks them back to reality.

* * *

"I'm starving, Miller. Can we please stop at a gas station or something? I never got to eat at the wedding, I was too busy chasing you clowns around and hanging out in the air vents."

"That was your own damn fault."

"How was it _my _fault?!"

"You chose to come in after us. And you being in there made the vent collapse."

"Someone had to stop you!"

"I was handling it."

"Yeah. Okay."

Nick pulls into the gas station, a full fifty five minutes since they impulsively set off from the wedding. He takes off his jacket and begins pumping the gas. Jess, still wearing her beautiful turquoise sari, negotiates her heeled shoes out of the car and into the little store. Her feet are throbbing with pain, and she's getting weird looks from the cashier, but she picks up dinner – a bag of cashews, a couple of bars of chocolate, and an extra-large blueberry slushie.

She brings her wares to Nick, who has filled up the tank halfway and is waiting for her in the car. He surveys the loot, and wrinkles his nose.

"You know I hate blueberry drinks. Why couldn't you have gotten strawberry or something?"

She rolls her eyes and opens the bag of cashews.

"But I like peanuts."

"You're a moron," Jess announces, snarfing five cashews just for the pleasure of seeing his face contort with disgust.

* * *

They drive around aimlessly for hours, eating cashews (Jess) and chocolate (Nick), taking turns with the slushie, trying to figure out where they are going. He drives until he's bored of the direction they're going on, and then takes an unexpected turn to another part of town. They drive through several darkened neighborhoods and fluorescently-powered shopping plazas, and try to guess the name of the towns they pass through.

Somehow, they make it to the beach. Nick sees signs advertising ocean views on the highway and decides to follow them. They park in an empty parking lot and find that they are barred from the water by only the flimsiest of metal gates, which is rusted and old and easy to climb over. Jess unpins her sari, revealing the cropped blouse and boy shorts she was wearing underneath. Her skin glowed, pearly and beautiful, in the California moonlight. The night was balmy, with little wind. Nick leaves his jacket in the car, and the two of them climb over the fence like children on a playground, and run towards the water.

Last time Nick ran into the ocean, it was cold and uninviting and he did it alone, in the name of being spontaneous and living, really _living_, his life. But this time, Jess is holding his hand, and Jess is running right beside him, and the water isn't quite as cold when she is next to him, screaming as they take the plunge together.

She clings to him in the water, beads of ocean water dotting her face, dripping from her bangs and her ponytail. Her blouse is thin cotton, so it's soaked through, and he can see that she isn't wearing a bra underneath. His own shirt is white cotton, and she can see the lines of his chest beneath the sodden, clingy fabric.

Her breath hitches as she kisses him fiercely, right then and there standing in the ocean, her hands clutching his wet hair. Both of them are shivering madly in the cold, but he unhooks the back of her blouse and tosses it behind them into the sand. In turn, she unbuttons his shirt and peels it off his body. His hand cups her breast, and she presses up against him, her face in his neck. She smells like jasmine and seaweed, and it's a strangely alluring combination.

She kisses him again, frank and earnest, and love surges in his veins like it's never done before. The stars twinkle as their witnesses, as she hops up and wraps her legs around his waist.

It's all mesmerizing, utterly romantic – until Nick loses his balance with Jess's weight so heavy upon him, and both of them fall into the water, shrieking as they go under.

But they resurface at once, and Jess starts laughing, truly _laughing_ – her nose crinkles and she doubles over and she sounds like she's choking, but then she starts crying, her tears mixing with the ocean water on her cheeks.

"God, Miller, I think I love you," she says.

He chuckles – half-embarrassed, half-awed. Gently, he tilts her chin up, and kisses her once more, achingly sweet.

"Right back at you," he tells her.

* * *

Neither of them knows how long they spend like that, splashing around in the water and then kissing in the sand. Physically, it's uncomfortable – the ocean's plant life is slimy and muddy, and the sand is cold and gritty against their skin, and they are dotted all over with goosebumps – but they are so simply, genuinely, unbelievably happy that it doesn't matter. Because he is with her, and she is with him, and this night – it is everything, _everything_.

"This is crazy," says Jess. "We are crazy. What are we doing? How is this a Thing? God, we still have to get back. I have work. So do you."

"I don't know, Jess," Nick says.

"Should I be concerned about that? All you've said since we started out is that you don't know – you don't know what this is, you don't know what it means, you don't know where we're going."

"I don't _have _to know, Jess." He strokes her wet cheek with his index finger, and sends a thrill down her spine. "We have time to figure it out."

The control freak in her is still concerned, but the rest of her likes the sound of that. She likes the idea of time – the way everything's kind of a mess right now, but it's okay, because there's something here that is amazing and beautiful and worth fighting for. And they _will _fight for it, in the coming days and weeks and months. What else is really worth knowing? They have so much time – like the sky bringing daylight, extending through the universe indefinitely.

They lay on the beach and count the stars for hours. They don't know any constellations, so they make them up. Jess finds a clown, but Nick doesn't see it. Nick finds a starfish, but Jess thinks it looks like a cupcake. They argue about it, in soft boygirl whispers and giggles and the occasional yelp. She rests her head on his chest, and he runs his fingers through her damp hair, and they keep each other warm through the coolness of the night.

* * *

When the sky begins to light up at the horizon, and sunrise is near, they get up from the beach and head back to their car. Nick gives Jess the jacket he left behind – her blouse is still too wet to wear – and she falls asleep in the front seat as Nick struggles to use the GPS on her phone to get them home.

They make it after a while, as the sun comes up for real. Nick gently shakes Jess awake, and they troop upstairs to take showers. The aftermath of their romantic getaway is significantly less than romantic – they have sand everywhere, and they smell like ocean water and cashews, and their clothes are wet, rumpled horrors.

Nick is grateful that Schmidt and Winston are not awake to see them like this – but also because now, this gets to remain his moment with Jess. No one else is around to intrude. The apartment is quiet and sunny and_ theirs_ for the morning. He takes a certain solace in that. The magic can last longer, before they have to go back to being themselves.

He lets Jess use the shower first. But as she is about to enter the bathroom, he grabs her wrist and pulls her into him, and kisses her one last time, hard and deep and delicious. She still smells like seaweed and jasmine, and he wants just a little more of that fragrance to keep, weird as that sounds – because now, their first adventure as a couple smells like seaweed and jasmine and he almost doesn't want it to end.

She returns his kiss eagerly – and when they break apart, she grins, and says, "How about we conserve a little water and just take one shower?"

He laughs at that, surprised and thrilled by her boldness. "Gotta save the environment, of course."

"Of course."

She laughs too, and pulls him into the bathroom with her. The door locks behind them with a satisfying click.


	2. Heatstroke

A/N: So this one is less Nick/Jess and more general loft shenanigans, but I hope you like it! (Obviously, I was in a very silly mood. And I'm not good with humor, so I pray that you guys actually find this funny.)

* * *

**II. Heatstroke**

* * *

"Is it still conked out?" Jess asks weakly, as she walks into the loft holding a bag of groceries. Her usually pale face is flushed a deep red; the back of her neck is sticky, her hair simultaneously stringy and frizzy in its ponytail.

Winston, Nick and Schmidt – all three of them sprawled at strange angles on the couch – nod mutely, miserably. It is too hot even to use words.

Jess sighs dramatically, and dumps her grocery bag on the counter, and flops on the couch next to Nick. He makes a pathetic whining sound, wriggling as far away from her as the sofa will allow. It's too hot even to touch Jess. The men stripped down to bare chests and boxers hours ago – and as it is Saturday, they cannot even escape to their air-conditioned workplaces. Even Schmidt, who believes that the day cannot be faced without an expensive designer suit.

Schmidt had tried, earlier that morning, to wear his usual starched, preppy attire – but within minutes, he went cross-eyed from heat and took off his clothes immediately. He claimed that the material was too luxurious to be marred by a thing like sweat, and that he could survive if he wanted to, but Nick and Winston simply shook their heads.

Of course, it was during the worst heat wave in recent Californian history, that 4D's air conditioning puffed its final farewell, and died. Not even handyman Nick was able to resurrect the machine. The temperature situation is desperate enough that Winston (after losing several games of rock, paper, scissors) was forced to call Remy and put in a maintenance request. He hasn't called back yet, and none of them has much faith that he will. For now, the ceiling fan is going at its highest speed, slicing the thick humid air and providing at least some relief.

"Why can't we go to Nick's bar again?" Jess asks crossly, fanning herself with her hand. "I could use a drink. And some cold air."

"Our air conditioner is getting fixed today, it went out yesterday," Nick manages to rumble. He takes several deep breaths then, as though he has just run a great distance. "It's okay. I'll fix it. Later."

"How about now, Nick?" Winston requests. He is sweating even more than Nick, a glistening sheen covering every inch of his skin, as though he has been dunked in a pool.

Nick merely grunts, and closes his eyes against the cruel, overheated world. And so oppressive is the cruel, overheated world, that neither Winston nor Schmidt pursues the issue any further.

Jess beholds Nick, Winston and Schmidt with some distaste. "You know, it's really not fair that guys are allowed to take off their clothes whenever they want, but with girls, it's not okay," she announces. "I'm hot too, but you guys get to sit around in your underwear, and I'm stuck in this gross sweaty t-shirt and shorts."

"You can be in your underwear if you want, Jess," says Schmidt, with a valiant attempt at his usual seductive grin. But it wilts fast in the heat, and he merely looks mournful.

Jess rolls her eyes, too hot to be annoyed with him. "You know what, I'm going to get a bikini, and you guys will just have to deal with it."

"Do you see anyone complaining?" says Nick.

"You guys better not look at me weird," she warns, as she negotiates herself off the couch and, with gargantuan effort, rises to her feet.

Winston's eyes are glassy; Schmidt's head lolls back behind the couch, as the blood rushes to his head. Nick looks up at Jess, smirking, and says, "_I'm_ allowed to ogle you, right?"

In spite of herself, Jess smiles slightly. "I'll think about it."

* * *

Jess emerges from her room a few minutes later, clad in a red polka-dot bikini, her hair twisted into a tight frizzy knot on top of her head. It is a testament to the heat that neither Schmidt nor Winston look twice at her; they are too concerned with fanning themselves with their hands, staring at the ceiling, and trying to endure the rest of the day. Only Nick grins at the sight of Jess, and even condescends to sit up, giving her more room on the couch.

"So maybe heat waves aren't _all _bad," he teases, and Jess laughs.

"You're a clown, Miller," she tells him, but she smiles sweetly, affectionately.

He kisses her cheek, and says, "I seriously hate this weather though."

"I know! Is there no way you can fix the air conditioner? Can you try again? Should I come with you?"

"Nah, it's fine, I'll go." Nick heaves himself up from the couch, his expression contorted with discomfort. This makes Winston look up, glaring as fiercely as his lethargy would allow.

"Wait, I asked you to fix that thing three times in the past couple of hours, and you just gave me one of your turtle faces! But then Jess asks, and it's Nick to the rescue?"

He shrugs as he stretches out his arms. "What can I say? She gets privileges."

Jess simply beams.

"Well, remind me to have Jess ask you for the croissants I like, or any other thing I need," Winston grumbles.

"Come on, it's getting hot, you have to fix it," says Jess. "I can't stand to be in here anymore."

"I know, I know, just gimme a sec." Nick stretches again, and his back makes an almighty crack. Jess looks baffled, but Nick is rather pleased with himself, and begins stretching out his legs.

"Is that a butterfly?" Schmidt chimes in then, chuckling loosely, borderline hysterically. He points up at the ceiling for a few seconds, before his arm collapses back down to the couch.

"Um, Schmidt? There's no butterfly up there," says Winston, eyeing him suspiciously.

"Oh, and look, there's it's butterfly mate! Winston, they're having butterfly sex!" Schmidt enthuses. "On a mound of whipped cream and berries, how romantic!"

Winston raises an eyebrow. "You had an air conditioner to fix?" he asks Nick.

* * *

While Nick disappears to fix the air conditioner, Winston and Jess watch as Schmidt descends slowly but surely into madness.

Schmidt does not deal with heat well. In hindsight, living in California was perhaps not the best life decision for him. It is unclear whether this is all an elaborate prank – Schmidt has been known to play those – or he is genuinely hallucinating, but the longer it continues, the latter seems more and more likely.

Suddenly possessed of superhuman energy, Schmidt's hallucinations go from butterfly sex to more sinister plots of alien world domination. "I KNOW YOU'RE IN THERE," he yells, as he attempts to pound a basket of Jess's knitting things into a pulp.

"Schmidt, stop it, okay? There aren't any aliens," Jess insists, snatching the basket away from him.

"THAT'S WHAT THEY WANT YOU TO THINK!" Schmidt picks up the lamp on the table beside him, and throws it to the ground, smashing it to pieces. "AND I KNOW ABOUT THE LISTENING DEVICES," he shouts at the ceiling, brandishing his fist at his imaginary tormentors.

"Hey, Winston, a little help here?" Jess asks, poking Winston squarely in the chest.

Winston, who is least concerned about Schmidt's outburst, who had actually been drifting in and out of sleep for the past few minutes, grunts irritably. "Hey. Jess. I think you've got this."

"I don't have this!" cries Jess, gesturing wildly at Schmidt, who is on the ground, sniffing the lamp pieces. "Can you stop him?!"

"Hey, Schmidt," says Winston, "do you mind? I'm trying to sleep here."

Schmidt runs to the kitchen, retrieves a spatula, and whacks Winston in the head with it. He then runs to the microwave, puts an apple in it, and sets the timer for two minutes, and whacks the microwave with the spatula too.

"I HAVE OUR SECRET WEAPON! IT IS ALMOST READY!" Schmidt announces.

"This is getting out of hand," remarks Jess, as Winston sobs quietly and rubs his aching head. "Winston, help me, please? I don't want to get Nick, he's working on the air conditioner, which is more important."

"OI. SCHMIDT." Winston now appears to wake up, and charges to the kitchen, where Schmidt is watching the apple melt. He stops the microwave, throws away the ruined fruit, and smacks Schmidt with the spatula in his hand. "I AM NOT PLAYING AROUND."

"NEITHER AM I!" Schmidt pulls out the rolling pin, and holds it threateningly in front of Winston's face. "_THIS. MEANS. WAR."_

"BRING IT!"

"Winston, this is _not_ what I had in mind when I asked you to handle this!" Jess wails, as the two begin a vicious utensil fight in the kitchen.

It is too damn hot to be dealing with them – running after them, stopping them from smashing up the kitchen, begging them to come back to their senses. Heat does strange things to people's heads. Sighing, Jess just gives up, and collapses on the couch in her bikini, unable to muster the energy to even be frustrated for too long.

They are grown adults, in theory. So, in theory, they should be able to handle themselves.

* * *

When Jess drifts back into consciousness, she finds the living room in complete devastation.

Schmidt and Winston have destroyed much of the living room and the kitchen—the fridge is open, and several bottles have smashed on the floor, and the lamps are broken and there are books and utensils and some of Nick's shirts scattered on the furniture—and now they are standing on the couch where they had sat earlier. Schmidt is holding Jess's hairdryer, and Winston is holding the shower rod from the bathroom, and the two of them are glaring daggers at each other.

"BEYONCE IS AMERICA'S QUEEN," Winston bellows. "AND ADELE IS THE TRUE QUEEN OF ENGLAND."

"WINSTON, YOU PHILISTINE, _LADY GAGA_ IS AMERICA'S QUEEN," Schmidt bellows back.

"Is this seriously happening right now?" Jess mumbles sleepily, yawning. "Is Nick back yet?"

Winston and Schmidt ignore her. She sits up, hugs her knees to her chest, and watches the two with mild interest. (If she wasn't going to/wasn't able to stop them, why not enjoy the ride?)

Schmidt looks as though he's about to yell something, but he is interrupted by the arrival of a large, swollen wasp, which flies directly toward Schmidt and makes him shriek bloody murder.

"OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD, WINSTON, GET IT AWAY FROM ME, WINSTON KILL IT, IT'S THE ALIEN OVERLORD!"

Schmidt slashes wildly at the wasp with the shower rod, narrowly missing Winston's head as he leaps out of the way. The wasp circles Schmidt threateningly, as though it can smell his fear—and Schmidt keeps trying to kill it, though his aim is poor and erratic. He is much too dangerous to approach, with the giant shower rod at his disposal, so Winston and Jess back away slowly, exchanging worried looks as Schmidt continues to shriek at the wasp.

With one enormous, almighty swipe, Schmidt manages to smack the wasp across the room by sheer dumb luck. In the same stroke, he also manages hit the fan—which has been working so hard for so long, that this is the last straw.

The fan makes a loud, high-pitched whirring sound, and falls right out of the ceiling and into the floor.

This, more than anything, brings Schmidt back to his senses. He stares in abject horror at the massive crater the fan has nestled into – it has most certainly smashed into the ceiling of the apartment beneath them, most likely scaring the daylights out of them. Schmidt drops the shower rod; it rolls solemnly towards Jess and Winston's feet.

Nick comes running out, shouting, "Is everyone okay? What the hell was that?!"

His eye catches Jess's. Jess points at the fan.

Nick looks from the fan to Schmidt, then back to the fan, then back to Jess.

"I was just going to tell you—I fixed the air conditioning," he says.

"Can you fix the floor?" asks Jess.

"Most likely not."

Winston, Jess and Nick exchange stunned, helpless looks, wondering what to do next.

Schmidt solves the problem by promptly fainting on top of the fallen fan.

Jess exhales slowly. "I'm going to find some pants. Nick, Winston, get him in the car, we're going to the hospital."

* * *

Schmidt has a mild concussion from falling – and had indeed been suffering heat-induced hallucinations and dehydration – but otherwise, he is all right. Of course, he milks it for all it's worth, lying in his bed, weakly requesting juice and snacks from the vending machine.

"I'm an invalid – can't you do me this one favor?" he whines, as he tries to convince Nick to fetch freshly squeezed orange juice from the grocery store. (Apparently, the juice here has pulp in it.)

"No, I'm not going to get you the juice, drink the damn hospital juice," Nick snaps.

In their haste to get Schmidt to the hospital, Jess is the only one wearing clothes; the other three came in what they were wearing, which was just boxers. Once Schmidt had been admitted, they were given hospital gowns to cover up; the hospital patrons kept snickering at them as they passed.

"Well, at least the hospital is air-conditioned," Jess remarks. "And the air conditioner will have kicked in at home by the time we get back, right?"

"Yeah, it should," says Nick.

"I swear, next time we have such a bad heat wave, I am going to squeeze myself into the freezer," Schmidt grumbles, tenderly rubbing the bandage on his head.

"Careful, Schmidt," says Jess, grinning. "We might hold you to that."

* * *

A/N: Endings are hard to write. Sorry about mine. But please do remember to review the rest of it before you leave!


End file.
